Snowden accuses Senate Intelligence Committee chair of hypocrisy

Only hours after United States Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) lashed out at the Central Intelligence Agency for allegedly spying on congressional committee members, former government contractor Edward Snowden accused her of hypocrisy.

Sen. Feinstein — the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee —
made headlines early Tuesday morning by calling
out the CIA on the floor of Congress. Committee member staffers
were unknowingly monitored by the CIA while investigating the
agency’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques, Feinstein
said, potentially violating the Fourth Amendment to the US
Constitution and a presidential order barring the CIA from
domestic spying.

By early afternoon, NBC News had acquired a statement authored by
Mr. Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor who has
been accused of espionage for disclosing sensitive documents
pertaining to US government’s vast surveillance operations.

“It's clear the CIA was trying to play 'keep away' with
documents relevant to an investigation by their overseers in
Congress, and that's a serious constitutional concern,”
Snowden told NBC News. “But it's equally if not more
concerning that we're seeing another 'Merkel Effect,' where an
elected official does not care at all that the rights of millions
of ordinary citizens are violated by our spies, but suddenly it's
a scandal when a politician finds out the same thing happens to
them."

NBC News investigative journalist Matthew Cole was the first to
report on the statement, and related Snowden’s remark as being in
reference to Angela Merkel — the German chancellor who erupted
with outrage last year after finding out that she was apparently
targeted by the NSA’s intelligence gathering operations.

Merkel’s complaints last year — and the apologetic response it
provoked from the White House — came in the aftermath of reports
based off of NSA documents leaked by Snowden in which the US spy
agency was shown to be committing widespread, indiscriminate
surveillance against millions of innocent civilians around the
world.

Feinstein defended the NSA’s domestic snooping last year, calling
it a necessary counterterrorism tool with the potential to thwart
attacks on American soil.

“The NSA call-records program is legal and subject to
extensive congressional and judicial oversight,” Feinstein
said last November. “I believe it contributes to our national
security.”

At the time, Feinstein admitted that she thought “more can
and should be done to increase transparency and build public
support for privacy protections in place.”

Speaking to RT America on Tuesday afternoon, former-Minnesota
Governor Jesse Ventura said he was offended that his tax dollars
are being used to conduct domestic spying against himself and
other Americans.

“I would rather have my political leaders put under
surveillance so I can know what they’re doing,” Ventura told
RT, adding later in the interview that he’d “Restore the
Constitution and the Bill of Rights” to stop the spy
programs if he had the power.

Snowden’s statement came only a day after he held a rare
question-and-answer session at the SXSW Interactive tech
conference in Austin, Texas, where he similarly said that he
believes “the Constitution was being violated on a massive
scale”by the NSA.